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Yo!

If you want a well-rounded leg day gym workout, you’re in the right place. 

You’ll hit a little bit of everything with this workout–your glutes, hamstrings, quads, and calves.

By the way, if you’re a beginner, I’d recommend dipping your toe into the weightlifting pool by checking out my introduction to strength training guide.

3 CRUCIAL workout tips

Make sure you’re doing the following with regard to your workouts:

• Applying progressive overload: Try to lift a little bit more weight or get just one more rep than you did last time. 
• Maintaining proper form: You’ll target the right muscles and avoid injury. It’s infinitely better to go lighter in weight and have good form than go heavy and have terrible form. 
• Pushing yourself near failure: You shouldn’t be flying through those last few reps. Your cadence should slow down significantly and it should take a substantial amount of teeth-gritting effort to get the weight up. If you treat your workouts like a walk in the park, your results (or should I say, lack thereof) will reflect that!

The best leg day gym workout

Here’s your workout

• Barbell squat: 3 sets x 5-7 reps (tutorial)
• Leg press: 3 sets x 8-10 reps (tutorial)
• Reverse lunges (each leg): 3 sets x 8-10 reps (tutorial)
• Seated hamstring curl: 3 sets x 10-12 reps (tutorial)
• Standing calf raises: 3 sets x 12-15 reps (tutorial)

Barbell squat

Position yourself under the bar, unrack the weight, and back up slowly until you get to the spot where you’ll be performing your squats. 

Your feet should be roughly shoulder-width apart or a little outside that and your toes pointed out slightly as well.

As you squat down, make sure to brace your core and on the way back up I want you to pretend you’re trying to make a giant hole in the floor with your feet. 

This will help you be more explosive and generate power to get the weight up. 

If you want to hit glutes while squatting, have a slight lean forward in your torso.

If you keep your body upright, you’ll hit more quads. 

Reverse lunges

Here are a few things to know about reverse lunges:

• A further step back = hitting more glutes.
• A lot of people struggle with their balance when performing lunges. Here’s what I want you to do: Don’t think, “I should be stepping straight back.” Think, “I need to step back and a little out to the side.” You’ll have a wider base, which will make balancing a lot easier.easier. 
• It’s okay to have a slight lean forward, just make sure you’re keeping your spine neutral (not rounding your back).  

Leg press

A few notes about leg press:

• Make sure you’re pushing through your heels (they should also remain flat on the platform). 
• Keep your back against the back pad of the machine. This will prevent the potential injury that comes with arching your back.
• Don’t lock your legs out completely at the top of the movement. This will place too much stress on your knees and can lead to injuries involving your ACL and MCL, among other ligaments. 
• Placing your feet on different parts of the platform will target different muscles. Placing your feet in the middle is a standard leg press. A wider stance works more inner thighs while a more narrow stance hits your outer thighs. Placing your feet higher up will allow you to target more glutes ad hamstrings while placing your feet lower on the platform will get you more quad activation. 

Seated hamstring curl

Sit down on the machine and hold onto the handles (if you’d like) that most have on the side

Curl the weight toward your until your shin forms a vertical line.

Slowly guide the weight back to the starting position and repeat for the desired number of reps. 

Standing calf raises

Starting position, feet should be flat on the floor, roughly shoulder-width apart.

Instead of turning your toes out slightly as you would with a squat, you want your toes pointing straight ahead. 

Come up onto the balls of your feet and feel that contraction in your calves.

Pause for one Mississippi at the top, then lower yourself back down to the starting position nice and controlled. 

12-week gym workout plan